Often, I’m asked by small business owners on how to get their name “out-there” and get some PR or media coverage.   Of course, on a limited budget, this can be difficult.  Well, one of the session’s at the Small Business Summit was a “Dragon’s Den-Like” panel consisting of Globe and Mail Small Business Editor Sean Stanleigh, Ivor Tossell , tech journalist and Marivel Taruc, CBC news broadcaster.

The purpose of this session was to understand how to pitch your business or idea to a media outlet, be it web, print or TV and get some media coverage.   There were 5 entrepreneurs that were pitching their business.

Each pitch was given 3 minutes!  That’s it!  And they had to do it in front of the panel and approximately 250 people!

Money was not the reward for the winning pitch, instead, it was a feature story in the Globe & Mail Small Business section.

I commend all the participants for pitching their businesses; not an easy task to stand there and get critiqued.  The panel gave some great feedback and below I captured 4 main points.

How-to-Pitch Your Business to the Media

1) Relevance to current news stories

If you can tie your business into a current story in the news (past or future stories work too), it gives the media outlet more reason to consider your business because they can tie it to that lead story and “ride-the-wave”.  For example, perhaps you are a software company that develops voting software for elections.  If there was a news story about voting mishaps during a recent election, that gives your business some leverage.

2) Hard numbers

Making statements out of thin-air does not help your cause.  If you say you are the largest distributor of baseball gloves in Canada, you better have some hard unbiased stats that show this.  The media is in the business of reporting – truthful and honest reporting.  So, you can’t make claims that are business goals, they have to be reality.  The media’s reputation is on the line.

3) What makes you different

Media outlets, according to this panel, get hundreds of requests for stories per month. To be able to “sell” their respective stories, they want to provide fresh stories to their audience that are unique.  So, if you can identify why YOUR BUSINESS is different, that will put you ahead of the other hundreds of requests.   Perhaps you make custom jewellery, but you use materials from developing communities around the world (like www.imoniq.com).  This can be distinctive because your business  is supporting developing entrepreneurial communities around the world –  a sense of social entrepreneurialism.

 4) Identify some challenges

Don’t pretend your business is perfect and has no challenges or competitors.  Remember, media wants to tell a story, so, if your small business isn’t strong enough to hold a story on its own, identify the problem and challenges surrounding it.  This way the media outlet can introduce your business by telling a story about those problems and challenges facing the community or society in general. For example, perhaps you provide counseling to youth.  If you identified trends about kids who are experiencing anxiety, perhaps, if you connected your business to “bullying” in schools, you could get some traction.
Real Growth for Real Business.

Reality Business Consulting is creative Internet Marketing Company in Toronto that works with business owners one-on-on to get found online and generate sales with their Internet Marketing Strategy. We produce real and measureable results to grow your business by using proven marketing, website, social media and SEO principles to attract new customers.

I am George Giantsopoulos, the principle of Reality Consulting.  I am an experienced marketing professional, presenter, philanthropist and an accomplished entrepreneur myself.  Through my hands-on experience of already successfully starting a business from scratch and my extensive marketing experience, I provide unique and knowledgeable insight for any business.

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